


Aaoooooo Parrots of Brooklyn

by Pineau_noir



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Crack, I blame the CapBB Slack Chat, M/M, Nonsense, Parrots, There are actual parrots in Brooklyn, There is no reason for this fic to exist, but i love it anyway, domestic stucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 17:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15890805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pineau_noir/pseuds/Pineau_noir
Summary: Look, the future was weird, ok?“You sawwhat?” Bucky said as he almost spit out his cereal.“I swear I saw a parrot on my run,” Steve insisted.“I think you need to have your eyes checked, pal.”Then a few days later he saw one again.Deep in the CapBB Slack Chat arose a discussion about the parrots of Brooklyn. This is thanks to the brains of coldwinterrose, daphneblithe, and the_genderman.





	Aaoooooo Parrots of Brooklyn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coldwinterrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldwinterrose/gifts), [daphneblithe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphneblithe/gifts), [the_genderman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_genderman/gifts).



> The title is because of [this fucking song](https://youtu.be/iDpYBT0XyvA) has the same rhythm and now I will forever sing "Aaoooooo Parrots of Brooklyn" instead.

Look, the future was weird, ok?

“You saw _what_?” Bucky said as he almost spit out his cereal.

“I swear I saw a parrot on my run,” Steve insisted.

“I think you need to have your eyes checked, pal.”

Then a few days later he saw one again.

“Sam, I know this sounds strange, but I saw a parrot on my run a couple of days ago and I'm pretty sure I saw another one today. I told Bucky about it and he said I needed to get my vision checked. But you can like talk to birds, right? Or something? Share brain space with them?”

“I mean, I can talk to Redwing a little and I can _usually_ keep pigeons from shitting all over me when I’m in the air, but it’s not like I can control them.”

Steve slumped down. They were in Steve and Bucky’s living room catching up on their lives after they had defeated Thanos with no casualties. Yeah, Bucky had been stuck in the Soul Stone while Steve and Tony had to make their peace and those three days were some of the worst days of his life; but now that the world had been saved, Steve had given up the shield so he and Bucky could live their lives in peace in Brooklyn. Thankfully, Sam took the mantle of Captain America and had been doing a wonderful job. 

“Oh, so you’re not like Scott, you can’t use your special powers for anything exciting,” Steve said with a smirk.

“Ok, _Steven_ I know you do not want to go down that road. I can fucking fly. I’m Captain America and I can fly. All you could do was throw this oversized frisbee,” Sam snarked back.

“Yeah, sure, whatever man.”

They had a wonderful afternoon, ribbing each other a lot and talking shop a little, and Steve didn’t even mind that Bucky and Natasha had gone off to do God knew what. He knew Bucky would be home and they could spend the evening together and wake up together. He treasured the quiet life after so much turmoil during his stint as Captain America. He was grateful to Sam everyday for allowing him to retire and finally start living his life.

Finally Sam decided he need to go, he could fly to the Avenger’s compound fairly quickly but he preferred to go during daylight so planes and helicopters and the like could see him better. Steve wrapped his arms around Sam and gave him several loud thumps on his back, 

“Good to see you, man. Sorry _Ant-Man_ one upped you on your powers.”

Steve thought Sam must have used a little extra strength during their hug because his responding “man hug” back thumps had a little more power behind them than usual.

“Oh, I’ll show you _powers_ ,” Sam muttered under his breath.

Steve had no reason to dwell on Sam’s parting words. Bucky came home and brought dinner, Ethiopian food was their current favorite, the mix of spicy meats and lentils combined with the spongy injera meant that they were both full after a single meal. It was the perfect balance of protein and starch, and made for some delicious cuisine.

They cleaned up the dishes and watched a little Netflix on the couch while they digested. Steve curled into Bucky, still in wonder that after all the years, after all the turmoil, they were somehow inexplicably together. He started to mouth along Bucky’s neck, alternating kisses and little soft bites.

“Hey, hey, Rogers, don’t get fresh with me on the couch. I’m a gentleman, I deserve a proper bed,” Bucky said as he laughed.

“Oh, but don’t the kids call it ‘Netflix and chill?’” Steve countered. “Can’t watch Netflix in our room.”

Bucky huffed out another laugh. “Old man Rogers, in the flesh. Steve, you know those ‘kids’ are like our age. Not our chronological age maybe, but our physical age.”

“You like me when I go all ‘get the hell off my lawn!'"

Bucky made Steve sit and and stop his meandring mouth. “Steve. I like that when there are _actual_ kids tearing up our lawn. We pay way too much money on upkeep to have all the neighborhood kids riding their bikes and messing everything up.””

Steve rolled his eyes. “Whatever, let’s go to bed, I’m wound up and by the looks of your sweats, you are too.”

\-----

Nothing weird happened until about a week after Sam’s visit. Steve was out on his morning run and he noticed another parrot, he was _not_ hallucinating, thank you Bucky. He stopped for a moment and pulled out his phone but as soon as he had unlocked it and gotten to the camera app, the bird had flown off. He just shrugged it off and went on his way. 

The next morning on his run he noticed another parrot, or was it the same one? Steve didn’t look that closely at birds figuring that to be Sam’s thing. But he once again got his phone out, unlocked, and the camera open and the bird flew off. He started to run again when he noticed the bird flying after him? Did parrots hunt people? Clearly he needed to Google birds.

He was running, musing about birds when he noticed another bird had joined the first bird, Steve was calling the first one “Sam” and he named the second one “Bucky” since they were both his favorite and most annoying people.

He ran home and did a quick Google search and found out that there were in fact parrots wild in Brooklyn. There was a whole community of birdwatchers (brooklynparrots.com) who followed the parrots and they had a whole blog dedicated to what he now knew were Quaker parrots or monk parakeets. He did a little happy dance and was maybe a little too smug when he showed it to Bucky that night. Bucky huffed and was generally apathetic to Steve’s amorous advances until Steve threw his hands up and said, “Fine, We will just go to bed without sex!”

Bucky finally relented after Steve called his bluff and was a little angry during the sex. Steve didn’t mind. When Bucky was annoyed, he really dragged things out, something that Steve couldn’t admit was a favorite. He didn’t want Bucky changing angry sex.

Bucky woke up with Steve the next morning and joined him on his run.

“Ok, maybe I’m wrong. But I want you to point out these dumb birds. Because this still sounds like something you or birdbrain made up.”

Steve sputtered. “Don’t call Sam birdbrain!” he said indignantly. 

Bucky smirked. “Knew who I meant, didn’t ‘cha?”

They followed Steve’s exact route but to his dismay, there were no parrots to be found. They got back home and Bucky was less than amused.

“Har har, Steve. You got me. What did Stark make up that website? Let’s all have a laugh at Bucky?”

Steve was indignant. There _were_ parrots in Brooklyn! He glared and Bucky and started up his route again. He either needed an angry run or an angry nap and he was already sweaty, so a run it was. His feet pounded into the pavement as he fumed. Why was the universe out to make him sound stupid? He had seen the birds, found the fucking website, and Bucky _still_ thought he was making them up. He knew in the scheme of things, getting his best guy to believe him about parrots was low, but they were supposed to be partners in life. And part of that meant believing the other person, even when they sounded dumb.

He did his route once more after finishing the first angry run. He needed to burn off some excess energy and wanted to work through his anger. By the end of _that_ run he was willing to admit the whole premise sounded fantastical and he wouldn’t bring it up the topic again until he had photographic evidence to show Bucky. It was not a fight he was willing to invest time and effort into.

He had quit his run and was walking back to his apartment when he stopped suddenly. There were three parrots standing in his way. One cocked its head to the side and regarded Steve with its black eyes. Another one squawked at him and the last one hopped until it was by Steve’s feet.

“Well, hello there little guys. I’m so glad you’re here. Let me…” he fumbled in his pockets, finally finding his phone,” let me just take a quick picture of you so my best guy doesn’t think I’m pulling his leg,” he continued as he unlocked his phone and opened the camera app. “Just...hold...still…” he started and the birds flew away.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?” he shouted, once again being outsmarted by birds.

He stomped home, only giving Bucky a terse “shower, angry nap,” as he did what he said he was going to do and washed off all the sweat so he could be clean in their bed. He napped for a little bit and felt a little refreshed especially as he woke up in Bucky’s arms.

“Hey, ‘m sorry,” Bucky whispered. “I didn’t mean to be a dick. I thought you and Stark were just teasing me. I believe you, Steve. Or, I mean, I _want_ to believe you anyway.”

Steve kissed him. “It’s fine. It’s dumb. Things are just so different than when we were young and this is one of the fun things instead of one of the depressing things. Truce?” he asked, voice full of hope.

“Course, Steve. If you’ll forgive me, I’m more than willing to let it be.”

The next few runs went the same way, sans Bucky. He would run, there would be a parrot or two following him but by the time he could get his camera working the bird would be gone. Then things really got weird. 

Steve was doing a little light stretching after his run. His muscles didn’t actually need it, thank you Dr. Erskine, but it felt good and Steve was very much into doing things that felt good during his retirement. He was working on stretching out his arms, right arm, palm up stretched across his chest while his left arm made a V around his elbow, when out of nowhere, a parrot flew up and landed on his palm.

“Bucky will never believe this,” he whispered, staying as still as possible. The parrot looked at him for a few more moments, leaned down to gently peck at his fingertips and then took off with a squawk

The next day during his stretches two birds flew up and landed on him. The next day, three, the next day four until he was at the point where he was almost covered with birds during his stretching routine. He briefly considered going inside to stretch but decided he enjoyed the outside too much to be run inside by birds who weren’t harming him, just slightly annoying him. Because after the awe wore off, it was a little annoying to be covered in anywhere from eight to ten birds during his cool down stretches.

After the third day of unsuccessfully getting a picture of the birds he gave up. One day he did try to get a stranger to take a picture, after hearing the woman gasp “Holy fuck, Captain America is covered in fucking _parrots_ ,” but she was no more successful capturing a shot of Steve with the parrots than he had been.

This went on another week until Steve broke.

“Sam!” he shouted when the other man picked up. “These fucking birds! What did you do?”

“Steve, are you ok? Are you having a stroke? Did you fall and now you can’t get up?”

“Very funny, asshole. Old jokes. Super original.”

“Wow, you’re saltier than the Dead Sea, Steven. Cursing and shouting, all in one conversation.”

Steve yanked the phone from his ear and glared at it, grumbling at his best friend. 

“There. Are. Parrots. In. Brooklyn.” Steve bit out. “They are following me. They are a _menace_.”

“Parrots. In Brooklyn. Ok, white boy. Glad they let me do the heavy lifting now because you’ve gone round the bend.”

Steve’s voice went a little shrill. “I’m serious! They follow me, they land on me when I’m stretching. I try to take a picture and they just fly off.”

Steve heard Sam chuckle and felt his anger multiplying.

“Are you still taking the long way to get to your camera?” he asked, as innocent as a unicorn. Steve knew a place he could shove the unicorn’s horn.

“I don’t know what that means, but I’m assuming by your tone that yes, I’m doing it the long way. But the point is, since you left here a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been cursed with parrots. They are green. They have blueish black on their wings. They squawk at me. They nip at me.”

“Whoa, they’re not hurting you, right?” Sam asked with actual concern in his voice. “That was not….” He trailed off and Steve saw red.

“That was not, what, Samuel Wilson?”

“Oh, nothing, just a thing people say. “That was not. You know, like ‘This bitch empty. Yeet!’ and ‘That’s so sad Alexa play Despacito.’”

“That is not a meme, Sam. Those were actual words.” Steve was pacing at this point. Bucky had peeked his head in, he must have heard the shouting, took one look at Steve’s face and “noped” the fuck out of there. Steve knew more internet slang than people gave him credit for. He might be 100 but he was damned if he was going to act like it.

Sam let out a half giggle, half sigh. “Ok, ok, I’ll call them off. I didn’t know so many would get involved. I just told one little guy to trail you on your runs occasionally because parrots in Brooklyn is such a ridiculous thing. I just wanted to just give you a hard time. I didn’t know that dude was going to tell all of his parrot buddies.”

Steve growled. He literally growled. “You did this? And how did they know to fly off when I got my phone out.”

Sam really laughed at that. “My friend, did you know if you wake up your phone you can swipe the camera button and take pictures. It takes like a second to do that. But I thought you probably opened everything up so I let Pablo know he would have a little time to leave before you got a picture and the joke would be funnier.”

“Pablo?”

“Dude needed a name!” Sam was indignant. “Can’t just go around calling them ‘bird one’ and bird two,’ now can I?”

Suddenly Steve was struck by an insight that made him have to sit down. Fuck. He remembered how he had needled Sam about his abilities and how they worked. He let out a big sigh.

“This is on me, isn’t it?” he asked in a monotone voice. “I started this, didn’t I?”

Sam let out a delighted laugh. “Yeah, kinda buddy. Like I said, I only meant for my dude Pablo to talk at you and follow you here and there. Sorry it got out of hand.”

Steve rested his head in his hands. “Ok, Wilson, you won this war. But I’ll win the next one.”

“Yeah, ok, guy. Look I’ve got to go. We’re about to do a training exercise. But I’ll send Redwing out right now to get a message so the parrots leave you alone.”

“Ok, thanks,” Steve mumbled.

“Suck it, Ant-Man,” Sam muttered.

Steve: “I’m telling you, the parrots were _right here!_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all this is the silliest thing I've written yet. Like, even if it gets zero feedback I'm really proud to have written it. It's just so dumb but it's such a clever idea so thank you to [the_genderman](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15889464) for introducing me to the idea. You're a cool dude.
> 
> Come see me on [Tumblr](https://pineau-noir.tumblr.com/) where I reblog Spideypool, Stucky, things that make me laugh, things that are important to me, and cute animals. I'm way too old to understand how it all works.


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